My wife and I went to the grocery store the other day. While she was in there loading up on what we needed for the week, I decided to visit the local arts and crafts store next door. I was always fascinated with arts and crafts. The ability to create something genuine out of small pieces of wood, yarn, string, fabric, you name it, was very intriguing to me. Intriguing, because my creative mindset to do something like that, just wasn`t there.
But what I do hold a creative knack for is the ability to find better ways to advertise, market, sell and promote products, businesses and services. So an idea hit me to combine my creative skill in advertising and promotions, with that of those items in arts and crafts.
If you create arts and crafts as a way to generate some income, or even as a hobby, practice these five tips below to increase and build your customer base.
Start a blog. Blogging is all the rage right now and will be for many years to come. A blog is a great way for someone to get the word out about who they are and what they do. There are many free blogging tools out there such as blogger, Wordpress and LiveJournal. Start your blog today and begin writing to your blog about the pieces of arts and crafts that you create. People that are interested in what you do, want to hear from you, because you are invariably an expert in the field.
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Write a press release. Local newspapers are always hungry for news, especially about what is going on in the community. A well written press release is a great way to get the word out on your arts and crafts. Your press release should be 400 to 600 words in length and answer the who, what, when, where, why and how of your business. If you are not a very good writer, do not worry, hire a local high school student who works on the school paper to write it for you. They are always looking for experience and here you go, being the nice person that you are, handing it to them. Once written, submit your press release to your local newspapers, and editors to magazines that cover what you are trying to sell. Don`t forget to put your blog URL, email address and a phone number somewhere in the press release so the readers can get in touch with you to order your products.
Start a newsletter. Now that you have a blog set up, you want to capture information from anybody and everyone who visits it. The best way to do that is to start a newsletter. You can easily set this up by visiting feedblitz on the web. It is a free service that is easy to use and implement. Your blog visitors will subscribe to your newsletter by entering their email address. Then once a week, month, etc., depending on how often you want to send it, your newsletter will be distributed to your subscribers. Your newsletter will include your expert information that you post on your blog, as well as a means for your readers to view your latest products to make a purchase. As your newsletter begins to grow, so will your sales.
Advertise online. A no brainer as you will need to generate even more visitors to your blog. A good way of doing this is to advertise. The best part is there are a variety of sites out there where you can advertise for free. Craigslist, Adpost, and our website are great places to start. Advertise with the free version at first to help generate more customers before you dive into paying for it.
Build up your Google page rank through exchanging links. Without going into scientific details, the Google page rank is the means by which google and other search engines rank your blog. The higher your rank, the closer to the top of search engines your blog will appear. A great way to increase your google page rank is through exchanging links. You want to exchange links with websites that are similar in content to yours, and try to exchange links that have an equal or higher rank than your site, although exchanging with a site that is lower than yours will not bring you down, you will just need more of them. We use LinkMarket to exchange links for our website. It is free service and they have over 80,000 other websites to exchange with.
So there you have it. Five great ways to get you started in selling your arts and crafts. It doesn`t matter whether it is your hobby or something you do full-time, implementing these five tips will help you along your way to a successful arts and crafts business.
By: Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:
Bruce A. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.indocquent.com/, an online resource that allows businesses and individuals to post their products and services for sale in 20,000 cities throughout 200 countries around the world.
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